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The Plot Against America (2004)

Philip Roth wrote ‘The Plot Against America’ in 2004. It re-imagines the events of the American mid-century when, instead of Roosevelt winning an unrepeatable third term, flying ace Charles A Lingbergh – a real-life celebrity-cum-political amateur – ascends to the presidency on a wave of populism and antisemitism.

In typically Rothian mode, the novel remakes history through the eyes of a notional Roth family in Newark, variously and increasingly desperately clinging to the promise that ‘despite the incredible speed with which our status as Americans appeared to be altering, we were still living in a free country’.